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AWAY WITH THE 
CIRCUS 






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a 


L%au± 


BY 

£• 

WINIFRED W. WISE 

VI 


ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

EMMA BROCK 


JUNIOR PRESS BOOKS 

albertXwhitman 

^ 4 CO 

CHICAGO 

1936 








Copyright, 1936, by 
Albert Whitman & Company 


fa 

• UJl2 
Au r 


Published in cooperation with the 
Julius Rosenwald Fund 




Printed in the U.S.A. 

NOV -4 '^36 

&C1 A 10031 1 






fi 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 


Jerry and Julie Look Down the Tracks. 13 

The Circus Train . 21 

The Luck Stones. 31 

Heart of the United States. 43 

Circus Life . 53 

A Great City. 63 

Jerry Is a Hero. 71 

A Million Years Ago. 81 

Runaway Elephants . 91 

Giants of Today.101 

Jerry Runs Away.Ill 

Jerry’s Night in the City.121 

Grandmother’s Dress.133 

Julie’s Airplane Ride.141 

Home Again.151 



7 




























FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

Already people sat row upon row.Frontispiece 

Then they sat down to listen. 12 

Jerry was as proud as a judge. 25 

They walked up the great steps. 45 

The lions and tigers hated each other. 55 

They saw a great ocean-going ship. 73 

“Here is your jungle”. 85 

The elephants had to push them out. 95 

Julie talked to Grandmother.105 

That time he managed a footing.113 

Jerry was sure he would fall out.125 

The stairs moved steadily up.137 

They passed a big red-and-silver airplane.145 

“It’s the loveliest dress I ever saw!”.153 


9 




















JERRY AND JULIE LOOK DOWN THE TRACKS 























/ 




































































- 

'■jiy *^' s n * .. ■ ■ i * t v | ■. 



















































































J ERRY and Julie lived with their grandmother and 
their dog Sassafras in a little house a few miles 
from town. Jerry was young, strong, and full of 
life. His sister Julie was sixteen, a year younger 
than Jerry. She was pretty as a honey-suckle blossom. 

Their house stood near the railroad tracks which ran 
out into the world in two silver bands. When the engine 
came down the tracks with its long tail of cars, the 
engineer always waved at Julie, and she waved back. 

Jerry said, “I wish I could go along with him and see 
what it’s like where I’ve never been. I want to see all 
the people, and the cities and the boats out there.” 

“You stop dreaming and cut that wood, Jeremiah,” 
scolded his grandmother, who was very old and very 
wise. 

So Jerry went to work chopping the wood and piling 
the sticks in neat little rows. But he couldn’t help won¬ 
dering what it was like at the end of the train tracks. 
Suddenly he stopped, and leaned on his axe handle, 
and stared down the train tracks. 


*3 




i4 


Away with the Circus 


“Julie,” he said, “what do you suppose it’s like out 
there?” 

Now Julie knew perfectly what her brother meant 
by his question because the very same thought was in 
her mind. It was that very question which always sent 
her flying out of the house to watch the train roar by and 
then speed away out of sight. But today she was tired 
of wondering without ever being able to know, and 
that made her contrary. She did not turn politely to 
answer her brother, but stood staring off into the dis¬ 
tance and said, “Out where?” 

Jerry picked up his axe and swung it sharply into a 
stick of wood. The wood split in two. 

“Out where!” he repeated impatiently. “Out in the 
world, of course.” 

The train had passed out of sight now, so Julie turned 
away from the tracks and came over to Jerry. 

She said, “I don’t know what it’s like out there any 
more’n you, Jerry. What do you guess it’s really like 
out there?” 

Jerry thought for a minute. “Of course, we’ve read 
about it in books at school. There are great cities with 
tall buildings that reach into the sky. There are broad 
roads with autos and street cars racing along. They’ve 
even built street car tracks above the city and dug tun- 



Jerry and Julie Loo\ Down the Trac^ 


15 


nels below for trains. Then there are telephones. Ev¬ 
eryone in the city has a telephone.” 

“Everyone?” Julie questioned. 

“Well, most everyone,” Jerry said. 

“We know what it’s like, in a way,” Julie said. “But 
we don’t really know.” 

Jerry nodded. “Reading about it in books isn’t 
enough. It just makes you want to know more.” 

“That’s so,” Julie agreed. “I guess there’s only one 
way to really know. And that’s to go see for ourselves. 
And it doesn’t look as if we’re ever going to be able to 

go.” 

“Julie! Julie!” their grandmother called. “You come 
in now and wash the dishes.” 

Julie went in. And Jerry went back to chopping his 
wood. When he had enough wood chopped and piled, 
he carried it into the house. Then he whistled for 
Sassafras and they went for the mail. 

Jerry always went for the mail eagerly. Most of the 
time, though, he came back empty-handed. But today 
there was a letter. And Jerry knew from the writing 
that the letter came from Uncle Bill, Grandmother’s 
son, who had left home many long years ago. He ran 
home swiftly, with Sassafras barking happily at his 
heels. 



16 


Away with the Circus 


“Grandmother, look! A letter from Uncle Bill!” 

“Goodness! Goodness!” Grandmother said, and 
wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. “I won¬ 
der where my glasses are.” 

Julie and Jerry both helped their grandmother find 
her glasses. Then they sat down to listen, while she 
read aloud. 

“It looks as if I won’t be able to see you this year,” 
Uncle Bill wrote. 

“Tish, tish,” their grandmother shook her head. 

For years, Uncle Bill had been promising to come to 
see them and he never got there. But at Christmas he 
always remembered to send a big box with presents for 
Grandmother and Jerry and Julie, so Grandmother for¬ 
gave him. 

“I had hoped to see you for sure this year,” their 
grandmother read on, “but when you travel with a 
circus, you can’t suit yourself—especially when you’re 
head elephant keeper.” 

Grandmother stopped reading and said, “Well, I 
guess there’s something to that!” 

Then she read on. “But this year it does seem a pity 
that I won’t be able to see you because I’m coming so 
close. I suppose Jerry’s a pretty big boy now, and Julie, 
too, must be almost grown up. I was thinking about 



Jerry and Julie Look, Down the Tracks 


17 


that the other day when I learned that the circus train 
would pass right through—” 

“Mercy!” Grandmother said. 

Jerry said, “Do you suppose we can see the animal 
cars?” 

“I don’t see why he can’t stop, just for a minute,” 
Julie said. 

“Ho-ho,” Jerry laughed. “Stop a whole circus train 
just so one man can see us!” 

Julie felt foolish after that and kept very still. And 
their grandmother read on. “Now, if you lived in a 
larger town, we’d stop and put up our tents and Jerry 
and Julie could have the time of their lives.” 

“A small town’s good enough for me,” their grand¬ 
mother sniffed. “He can have all the cities he wants. I 
like to breathe clean, fresh air, and hear the birds sing 
when I get up in the morning.” 

When their grandmother had finished reading the let¬ 
ter and put it away in the drawer with all the rest of 
Uncle Bill’s letters, Jerry and Julie sat on, thinking. 

Grandmother said, “Why don’t you finish your work 
and get Melissa and George and go for a picnic? I’ll 
pack you a lunch.” 

“But, Grandmother! We might miss seeing the cir¬ 
cus train,” Jerry said. 



Away with the Circus 


18 


Now their grandmother was very old and she had 
learned not to waste her time waiting for uncertain 
things. 

She said, “Most likely it won’t come for a day or two 
yet, and you’ll just lose your whole afternoon.” 

Julie said, “But it might come!” 

So their grandmother shrugged her shoulders and 
said, “Well, suit yourselves!” 







THE CIRCUS TRAIN 


v v j ■■ j y y V ^ ' v v ^ 






W HEN the moon was full, Sassafras howled 
at it all night long or ran through the 
woods. Early the next morning he began 
to bark excitedly. Jerry jumped out of bed 
and across to the door. Sassafras was barking at a huge 
animal with a rough gray hide loose as an old suit of 
clothes. It was pulling up the sweet potato vines in the 
garden with its long trunk and feeding itself. 

“Jumping catfish! It’s an elephant!” shouted Jerry. 
He put on his clothes and ran outside. 

Just then a smiling red-faced man came along and 
stroked the elephant on the trunk. The giant animal 
followed him away like a faithful dog. 

Jerry’s eyes opened still wider when he saw red, blue, 
and yellow cars on the railroad tracks. He read in big 
black letters: BROWN’S CIRCUS AND WILD ANI¬ 
MAL SHOW. He had a whole circus right in his own 
back yard! 

Soon the red-faced man came back and asked, “You’re 
Jeremiah Collins, aren’t you?” 


21 





22 


Away with the Circus 


“Y-yes,” Jerry said. “And you’re my Uncle Bill!” 

The red-faced man laughed warmly. “Your Uncle 
Bill, eh?” he said. Then he laughed again. 

“But Uncle Bill, I thought . . .” Jerry began. 

Uncle Bill nodded. “You got my letter, then? Well, 
this just goes to prove that once in every lifetime, a 
miracle really happens. The circus train broke down 
right here in your back yard. And we’re stuck here for 
the rest of the day!” 

“Whew!” Jerry whistled. “Can you imagine that!” 

“And now, where’s your grandmother? I want to 
surprise her.” 

Jerry led him to the house. 

“Sh-sh,” Uncle Bill warned him. 

Then he tiptoed into the house and stood behind the 
old woman, who was cooking breakfast. When she 
turned around and saw him, she nearly dropped the fry¬ 
ing pan. 

“Oh, Bill!” she cried. “It’s been so long, so long!” 
She shed tears of joy as he held her very tightly in his 
arms. 

Her son could stay but a short time, for he had to get 
back to his work with the circus. He said that since 
they were stuck for at least a day, the big boss had de¬ 
cided to pitch the tents right where they were and give 



The Circus Train 


23 


people, who had never seen a real circus before, the 
treat of their lives. 

“You don’t mean that we’re going to have a circus 
right here!” Jerry said. 

“That’s what I mean,” Uncle Bill said. “And it’s the 
best thing we could possibly do, since we’re stopped. 
Gives the circus people something to do and lets the 
animals out of the cars for a while.” 

“And gives me the chance to see you! ” Grandmother 
said, and kissed Uncle Bill again before she let him go. 

As he went out the door, he called back to Grand¬ 
mother, “I’ll be here again tonight before we leave.” 

Jerry followed him, and Uncle Bill laughed, “I never 
yet met a boy who didn’t want to work around a circus. 
Come along and give the men a hand.” 

Jerry’s knees shook as he helped the men run the 
wagon cages of animals down from the flat cars to the 
ground. Sleepy lions yawned behind the iron bars of 
their cages, showing fierce white teeth and red mouths. 
Black bears walked up and down. A big tiger looked 
hungrily at Jerry as though he’d like to eat him for 
breakfast. Before the horses were hitched to the wag¬ 
ons, Jerry helped to rub them down. He also held the 
ropes when the men raised the big brown circus tents 
in a field. 



24 


Away with the Circus 


Pretty girls with feathers in their hats rode by on 
snow-white horses. Cowboys chased Indians. Clowns 
painted broad, red smiles on their faces, and turned 
handsprings. Everybody was laughing and talking. 
Then drums beat, and a horn blew loud and clear. 

“Hurry, Jerry! Put on these clothes and ride with 
us in the circus parade,” shouted Uncle Bill. “We’ve 
got to let people know we’re here so they’ll come to the 
circus.” He threw Jerry a tall white hat and a bright 
blue suit with gold buttons on it, and Jerry hurried into 
the gay clothes. 

Jerry climbed to the top of a wagon and sat down 
with the band. Away they went at the head of the 
circus parade playing turn, turn, t-t-TUM, turn, t-t-tum, 
turn, TUM, turn. Jerry was up so high that a tree 
branch almost knocked him off the wagon. He held 
onto his tall hat and looked down at the crowds, who 
had heard the wonderful news of the circus and come 
running from all the country around. He had never 
before in his life seen so many people. 

“Hi there, Jerry,” shouted somebody. “Hi, there! 
Hi!” People called and waved to him all along the 
streets of the town. 

Jerry sat up straight and was proud as a judge. When 
they got back to the field, Uncle Bill handed him a dol- 




Jerry was as proud as a judge 


















































I 


The Circus Train 


27 


lar and three tickets to the circus. Jerry took off his 
white hat and blue suit, and ran towards Melissa’s house. 
But, when he saw her at the front gate, he slowed down 
and walked as though he had just happened that way. 

“Hello, Jerry,” she called. “I saw you in the parade. 
You looked smart as a rooster.” 

“I’ve tickets for you and me to go to the circus this 
afternoon, ’Lissy.” 

“Oh, Jerry,” she cried in delight. “I’ll wear my new 
yellow dress.” 

The circus parade had awakened the town. Front 
doors in all the little houses up and down the streets 
were opening wide to let everyone out to the circus. 
Jerry, Melissa, and Julie hurried to find seats in the big 
circus tent. The band played a lively tune that made 
their feet dance. Already people sat row upon row— 
hundreds of people. 

The elephants and camels marched in two by two, 
just as the animals went into the Ark. A beautiful queen 
sat on a gold throne with a king—their crowns sparkled 
with diamonds. 

“Oh, she’ll fall off!” cried Julie when she saw a girl 
in a full white skirt standing upon the back of a gallop¬ 
ing horse. 

Far above the crowds, a man walked along a wire 



28 


Away with the Circus 


holding an umbrella to balance himself. Men and wom¬ 
en leaped across from swing to swing high in the tent. 
When a trainer cracked her whip, a lion jumped through 
a ring of fire. Jerry, Melissa, and Julie were breathless. 

Afterwards, Jerry met Uncle Bill. “Well, how did 
you and the girls like the show?” asked the man. 

“It was great. I could look at it for a month of Sun¬ 
days,” answered Jerry. “Gee, I wish I had a job with 
the circus.” 

“I’d like to take you along. You’re just the sort of 
boy I used to be. Well—” Uncle Bill thought for a few 
minutes. At last he said, “I can fix it up for you. We 
need another strong young fellow.” 

“You mean—you can get me a job with the circus?” 
Jerry couldn’t believe what he heard. 

“Surely do. Five dollars a week, and your meals and 
a place to sleep. Remember, though, it will be more 
hard work than fun.” 

“I’d rather have that job than jump over the moon,” 
cried Jerry. “But—I’ll have to ask my grandmother 
first.” 

He left the two girls and ran off to the little house. 
At first his grandmother said he couldn’t go with Uncle 
Bill. Then she said, “Yes,” and, “No,” again, rocking 
faster and faster in her chair. 



The Circus Train 


29 


Jerry was far too big to cry, but he felt like doing it. 
Instead he went outside and sat down near the pump, 
thinking how wonderful it would be to go away with 
the circus. Then his grandmother put her old hand on 
his shoulder and said slowly, “You can go, Jeremiah, 
if they’ll take Julie too. She’ll see that you don’t pick up 
bad ways. You two young birds are ready to fly out of 
the nest.” 

Julie came home just then, and Jerry told her the 
news. She was so excited that she ran faster than he 
did back to Uncle Bill. He asked her, “What can you 
do, Julia?” 

“I can work hard,” she answered quickly. “I can cook 
and sew and wash clothes. I’ll be a big help to the circus 
people.” 

“All right,” said her uncle. “You and Jerry be ready 
tonight when the train pulls out.” 

Jerry and Julie ran around the house like chickens. 
They didn’t know where to begin to get ready. Julie 
started to mend her stockings and her calico dresses, 
but she stuck her finger with the needle. Jerry went out¬ 
side and chopped more wood—he meant to leave a good 
supply for his grandmother. 

“Come in, Jeremiah,” she called. “I want to press 
your pants.” 






THE LUCK STONES 













Ill 


A FTER their grandmother had packed all their 

/■A things in leather bags—even to Julie’s look- 
jL JL ing glass—she opened an old teapot. In it 
were two white stones wrapped in dried moss. 
One was marked with an “L,” and the other with a 
“J.” The letters were a part of each stone. 

“What are those?” cried Jerry and Julie. “We never 
saw them before.” 

“They are two stones from the throat of a strange 
fish,” began their grandmother. “My mother gave them 
to me. She had them a long, long time, almost before 
she could remember. One stone brings you good luck, 
and one brings you bad.” 

Grandmother was very old and very wise, and she 
said, “You must have the bad luck with the good—like 
hot pepper in the stew. It makes the meat taste better. 
Put out your hand, Julia. And you too, Jeremiah.” 

“I have the stone with the ‘L’,” cried Julie. 

“I got the ‘JV' sa id Jerry looking at it hard. “That’s 
the bad luck stone. I know it.” 


33 




34 


Away with the Circus 


“Yes, it is,” replied his grandmother. “It stands for 
‘joker,’ a mean sort of bad luck that laughs at you.” 

“Take it back, Granny. I don’t want it. Take it 
back.” 

“No, Jerry, I won’t take it back. If you stay with 
Julie, her stone will bring good luck to you both. If 
you run away from her, bad luck will follow you. Re¬ 
member what I have said.” 

Uncle Bill was waiting for them. It was time to go. 
Jerry and Julie kissed their grandmother very hard. 

“Oh, Granny, we’ll be so lonesome for you,” they 
cried. “What shall we bring you when we come back 
here?” 

“Dear children,” she said with tears in her eyes. 
“Bring me a dress of purple silk. I’m going to live a 
long time yet, but I want to be buried in a dress of 
purple silk.” 

Outside the house stood Melissa and George. Melissa 
cried, “I’ve brought you a red necktie to remember me 
by, Jerry.” 

“Thanks, ’Lissy. I won’t forget you —ever. I’ll be 
back one of these days.” 

George gave Julie a box of candy tied with a blue rib¬ 
bon and said, “I guess I’ll never see another girl so 
pretty. I’ll be thinking about you most of the time.” 



The Luc\ Stones 


35 


“Maybe I’ll be thinking about you, too,” whispered 
Julie into his ear. 

“All aboard! ” shouted Uncle Bill. He lifted Julie and 
her bag up the steps of the train. Jerry was following 
along when he heard a loud barking at his heels. It was 
Sassafras. 

“Good-by, good old dog,” called Jerry. The train 
started to move away and he leaped upon the steps. 
“Good-by, Sassafras.” 

“Women in this car,” said Uncle Bill. He opened the 
door for Julie and then he took Jerry away to the car 
for men. 

Julie found herself in a car full of strangers. They 
were sitting two by two in green seats that faced each 
other. One woman was so fat that she looked like a big 
pillow with arms and legs sticking out of it. But she 
called to Julie in a friendly way, “Come sit beside me, 
girl.” 

Julie made herself as small as possible and squeezed 
into the seat. She could scarcely breathe. Across from 
them sat a woman with one leg twisted around the other 
in an odd sort of way. 

“Don’t mind her,” said the Fat Lady. “She’s the lady 
that ties herself in knots.” 

“Oh,” said Julie. She looked at a tiny creature in a 



3<> 


Away with the Circus 


woman’s dress and hat. The tiny creature smiled and 
said in a high little voice, 

“Hello. How are you going to like traveling with the 
circus?” 

“Goodness,” cried Julie. “I thought you were a 
baby.” 

“No, no. I’m older than you are, but I’ll never get 
any bigger. I’m a midget.” 

The Fat Lady laughed and said to Julie, “Come along. 
Let’s get ready for bed.” 

“Bed?” asked Julie. “I don’t see any.” Then she saw 
a man turning over the seats and making beds out of 
them. He reached up and pulled down what seemed to 
be the upper sides of the car. They were beds, too! 

“Surely we have beds, only we call them berths on the 
train. Upper and lower berths,” the Fat Lady explained. 
“People traveling on trains have to sleep like anyone 
else.” 

“Of course,” answered Julie in a faint little voice. She 
had never been away from home before, and everything 
seemed so strange. 

She climbed to an upper berth by a ladder and un¬ 
dressed behind a green curtain. Then she lay down, but 
did not go to sleep for a long time. She liked Uncle 
Bill and the other circus people, and she was excited 



The Luc\ Stones 


37 


about all the wonderful things she would see. But she 
heard the train wheels carrying her miles away from her 
grandmother. Julie held her lucky stone tightly in her 
hand and cried a bit. 

When she woke up, it was daylight, and the train had 
stopped. She dressed and went outside, where men were 
forking hay to the camels and elephants. The monkeys 
jumped about their cages and screamed. With their 
wrinkled hands and faces, they looked like funny little 
old men. Above the noise, Uncle Bill shouted, “Hurry 
along to the cook tent, Julie.” 

While she set the long tables in the tent, the cook’s 
other helpers fried huge platters of bacon and eggs, and 
sliced enough bread to feed an army. Surely, nobody 
went hungry in the circus! The cook himself was put¬ 
ting dozens of apple pies in the oven, but he turned 
around and told Julie to pull up the flag. 

“What flag?” she asked. 

“Here, I’ll show you.” He raised a flag to the top pole 
of the tent. “There. That means EAT to circus people. 
See them come running!” 

Jerry was one of the first to arrive. But Uncle Bill 
pointed back to a row of small horse-like animals striped 
black and white, and ordered, “Jerry, get those zebras 
out of the water buckets before their stripes run.” 



38 


Away with the Circus 


Jerry was obeying when all the men laughed. “Don’t 
let Bill fool you. Those zebras get dizzy from looking 
at their own stripes, and they’d kick you out of the cir¬ 
cus lot. A meaner animal than a zebra was never born.” 

Nearly every day the circus stopped in a different 
town. It did not often stay two days in one place. Al¬ 
most every night, it packed up after the show and trav¬ 
eled on through the forests, the farms, and the moun¬ 
tains of the South and East. Often it left the wide coun¬ 
tryside and reached large cities where the chimney stacks 
of the factories were as thick as trees in the forests. 

In many cities there were cotton mills. Now every 
year Jerry and Julie had picked bags and bags of cotton 
in the hot sun. Jerry used to drive wagons full of cotton 
to the gins, where the brown seeds were pulled out. 
With the money they earned, Jerry and Julie used to buy 
cotton cloth for shirts and dresses. They knew a great 
deal about cotton, but they didn’t know how it was made 
into cloth until Uncle Bill took them to visit a cotton 
mill. 

Here they saw cotton beaten to a soft white down and 
combed smooth as a girl’s hair. Then clever machines 
spun the cotton into fine yarn. Many of the people tend¬ 
ing the machines were no older than Jerry or Julie. Big 
pots of dye colored the yarn blue and yellow and pink. 



The Luc1{ Stones 


39 


Then machines working much faster than men’s fingers 
wove the yarn over and under, over and under, weaving 
yards of bright new cloth. 

“My!” said Julie to Uncle Bill. “If you owned this 
cotton mill, I’d make you give me a pretty new dress 
every single day.” 

“Perhaps I would,” laughed Uncle Bill. “Anyway, 
I’d be rich enough to do it.” 








HEART OF THE UNITED STATES 















IV 


B ACK at home, Jerry and Julie had stood and 
looked out to where the blue sky met the green 
land, and wondered what the world was like. 
Lying in the summer grass and staring up at 
the white clouds, they had dreamed of it, placing the 
things that they had read at school into their own hazy 
dreams. They had talked often. But now, traveling 
with the circus, they were seeing things more wonderful 
than they had dreamed of or read about. Sometimes 
they remembered the day when they had almost given 
up hope of ever seeing the world for themselves. That 
day seemed long ago now. Already they felt very much 
older and far more wise. 

One day, they heard the Atlantic Ocean roaring into 
shore like an angry beast. But the next day the great 
ocean was peaceful, and fishing boats sailed out from 
harbor. Journeying inland, they saw a white dome rising 
in matchless splendor. It was the Capitol of the United 
States. 

When the circus had pitched its tents just outside 


43 




44 


Away with the Circus 


Washington, the capital city, Uncle Bill said, “I want 
you to have a look around Washington. If you finish 
most of your work before ten o’clock tomorrow morn¬ 
ing, I’ll take you on a tour. We can do it if we’re back 
at the circus before my elephant act in the afternoon.” 

Uncle Bill treated Jerry and Julie as though they were 
his own boy and girl. They were very fond of him. 

As they left the sight-seeing automobile, and walked 
up the great steps and between the huge white pillars 
of the Capitol, he told them that here was the very heart 
of the United States. He meant that here was the center 
of the whole country’s government! 

In one wing of the Capitol was the House of Repre¬ 
sentatives, or the lower house of Congress. In another 
wing was the Senate, or the upper house of Congress. 
In both houses, Julie and Jerry saw men jumping to their 
feet and trying to talk at once. They were not very 
friendly and seemed to be quarreling. 

“Some of them want a certain bill to become a law, 
and others disagree,” Uncle Bill explained. “It’s just as 
though I wanted to make every boy in the country pay 
five cents every time he caught a fish. 

“Suppose I were a Representative, and Jerry were too. 
Jerry would get up and say he thought my bill was not 
fair to the boys. But if enough members of Congress 




They wal\ed up the great steps 




































































































4 























Heart of the United States 


47 


agreed with me, my fish bill would pass in the House 
of Representatives and in the Senate, and be sent up for 
the President to sign and make it a law. 

“Then every boy in the country would have to pay 
five cents for every fish. Of course, laws deal with things 
far more important than boys’ fishing, but they are made 
in just this way.” 

“Could Jerry really be a Representative and make 
laws?” asked Julie in surprise. 

“Surely, when he’s old enough. So could you,” Uncle 
Bill answered. “You could even be Senators, or Presi¬ 
dent of the United States! 

“Think what a mix-up it would be if all the millions 
of people in this country came to Washington at once 
and tried to run the government! Instead the people 
choose men to represent them. Even a few women are 
chosen nowadays, although no woman has ever been 
President. > 

“When you are twenty-one, you will begin to vote. 
Then you, too, will have a voice in the government.” 

They left the Capitol and walked down a street lined 
with splendid government buildings. One of these was 
America’s treasure house. In it were millions of dollars. 
Near it, they saw a beautiful white house set in lovely 
grounds. 



4 8 


Away with the Circus 


“That’s the White House where the presidents of the 
United States have lived and worked for well over a 
hundred years,” said Uncle Bill. “Its stones were first 
painted white to cover up the smoke stains after the 
British burned it during the War of 1812. Since then 
it has always been painted white. So it is called the 
White House.” 

“It looks so pretty!” cried Julie. “I think it’s just the 
place where a President ought to live.” 

“The White House blazes with lights when the Presi¬ 
dent and his wife have parties for many famous people,” 
Uncle Bill went on. “But the President also has visits 
from people such as you and me. On New Year’s Day 
he shakes hands with thousands.” 

“My! I’d like to shake hands with the President,” 
Julie cried. 

“Perhaps you will some day,” answered Uncle Bill. 
“Now, tell me who was the first President of the United 
States.” 

“George Washington,” Jerry and Julie shouted to¬ 
gether. “He was the father of his country. He was 
first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his coun¬ 
trymen.” 

“What did George Washington do before he was 
President?” 



Heart of the United States 


49 


“He ran a big plantation. Then he led the American 
armies against the British in the Revolutionary War. 
He helped to free the American colonies from the 
British and establish the United States.” 

“Right,” Uncle Bill agreed. “Why didn’t the Amer¬ 
icans like the British?” 

“Because they didn’t want a king ordering them 
around. The people wanted to be free to govern them¬ 
selves and make their own laws,” cried Julie. “Why, 
that’s just what you were talking about up there in the 
Capitol.” 

“Yes, it is,” Uncle Bill answered. “The American 
people believe that all men should be free and equal. 
You two seem to know a great deal about American 
history. I wish we had time to go on a short trip out 
to George Washington’s plantation, the very one you 
were talking about.” 

“Oh, couldn’t we?” asked Julie. 

Uncle Bill looked at his watch and answered, “No, 
we must start back to the circus grounds right away.” 



4 






























CIRCUS LIFE 


•> 











« 
































* 






V 


ULIE was sewing on buttons and darning stock¬ 



ings one Monday morning. The buttons went on 


a clown suit with a big hump in the back where 


k/ the clown kept a baby pig during the show. The 
crowd always roared with laughter when he pulled it 
out, squealing. 

The stockings Julie was darning were long and pink. 
They belonged to Florabel, who did daring tricks in 
mid-air from high swings called trapezes. For her act, 
Florabel wore the pink stockings and a tight pink suit 
covered with bright spangles. She and Julie were the 
same age, and were good friends. Florabel had been 
with the circus since she was born, for her mother and 
father were circus folk. There were many such families 
with the circus. 

As she sewed, Julie watched over a baby asleep in a 
trunk near her. It belonged to the woman who trained 
the wild animals. Oscar, the chimpanzee, was chained 
near by. When Julie was not looking, this big man-like 
ape reached out a long arm and tickled the baby’s feet. 


53 




54 


Away with the Circus 


Julie shooed him away, but he stole back and tipped 
over her sewing basket. The spools rolled everywhere. 
Julie was very angry, but Oscar ran to the end of his 
chain and climbed upon a cage out of reach. 

Just then an ostrich stretched its long neck out of 
the bird pen and swallowed a thimble, a darning egg, 
and two spools of red thread. While Julie was trying 
to save the rest of her things, Oscar came and sat down. 
He tried to thread a needle, and screwed up his face in 
such a funny way that Julie burst out laughing. Oscar 
was a good deal like a human being. He often wore 
clothes and ate with a knife and fork. 

Soon Oscar ran off to tease the hippopotamus named 
Baby. Baby was the best-natured animal in the circus, 
but she was also the ugliest. She looked something like 
a huge pig; indeed, she was a pig cousin from Africa. 
Sometimes Jerry played his banjo and sang a song about 
Baby that began: 

“I’d surely make an awful fuss 
Were I a hippopotamus.” 

Julie was always careful to stay away from the lion 
and tiger cages. Though they were often as peaceful 
as big pussy-cats, one could never tell when they 




The lions and tigers hated each other 































































Circus Life 


57 


would strike out as quick as lightning with their claws. 

The lions and tigers hated each other, and growled 
fiercely when they did tricks together in the circus tent. 
Often death was at their trainer’s very elbow! Her 
only weapons were a whip and a kitchen chair. The 
cats feared the chair because they could not bite all four 
legs at once. 

Lion mothers and fathers were good parents and 
loved their cubs, but the tiger mates were quarrelsome. 
When a tigress had a cub, the father shook his cage 
with roars, wanting to kill it. Another jungle cat, the 
spotted leopard, was such a bad mother that it was a 
wonder her babies lived at all. 

Jerry learned much about the animals as he worked 
about the circus. They all had to be kept clean to be 
healthy. Every few days the elephants were swept with 
brooms, and every week their toenails were cut and 
polished. Every morning Jerry rubbed down the horses 
until they shone like silk. The bareback rider scolded 
if she found a speck of dirt on her beautiful horse. She 
always dusted him with a white handkerchief to make 
sure he was clean. 

Later on, Jerry helped to take care of the lions. He 
didn’t like this job, for the lions raged when he cleaned 
out their cages with a long iron scraper. One day he 



58 


Away with the Circus 


got too near the cage of the biggest lion, a true king of 
the jungle. Fiercely, the beast clawed Jerry’s arm. 
Though the wound hurt badly, Jerry kept right on with 
his work. But Uncle Bill saw him and ordered, “Hurry 
along to the doctor, or you’ll be sorry the rest of your 
life. You might lose your arm. There’s poison in a cat 
scratch.” 

The doctor cleaned Jerry’s arm and put medicines 
on it. “You got here just in time, boy,” he said. “There’s 
a bad swelling already. Never let a cut or a scratch go. 
The poison can run through you like fire.” 

Then Jerry took out the pocket book, in which he 
was saving his money to buy his grandmother the pur¬ 
ple silk dress, and handed the doctor a bill. But the 
doctor said, “No.” That was part of his job in the 
circus, just as it was part of Jerry’s job to help take care 
of the animals. 

Jerry was half sick for a week, hot and cold with 
fever. But he did his work every day just the same. 
Every day the doctor cleaned his wound with medicine 
and wrapped it in a clean white cloth. At last Jerry’s 
arm was all right again. He was happy when Uncle 
Bill said, “You’re the kind of fellow we want in the 
circus. You do your work the best you can no matter 
how you feel. And we want you too, Julie. You take 





Circus Life 


59 


things as they come, the hard work along with the fun. 
That’s the best kind of person to be all your life, let 
me tell you.” 








A GREAT CITY 




































































VI 


U NCLE BILL was really a very important man 
with the circus. He had one of the hardest 
jobs—making the herd of elephants behave. 
Few men could do this, for the elephants 
became excited at anything strange. 

Uncle Bill did not try to make their work easy for 
Julie and Jerry, but he did get a day off for them now 
and then. He wished them to see as much as they could 
while they traveled. When the circus camped not far 
away from the wide, busy Hudson River, he said: 

“The big boss says you can go over to New York 
City tomorrow. It’s a sight you’ll never forget, but 
don’t get lost. I’ll meet you over there at the ferry 
station in the afternoon.” 

The next morning, Julie put on her best blue dress 
with the ruffles, and Jerry wore the red necktie Melissa 
had given him. Then they polished their shoes and 
took a ferry boat across the Hudson River. The sun 
shone on the proud strong beauty of the giant build¬ 
ings called skyscrapers. 


63 




6 4 


Away with the Circus 


“I feel small as an ant,” cried Julie after they landed. 
They were walking along a street between the huge 
buildings. Jerry and Julie had heard and talked about 
such buildings, but they never had dreamed they were 
so big. 

“So do I, but I suppose you get used to it if you live 
here,” answered Jerry. “I’d like to climb to the top of 
one of these skyscrapers.” 

“Let’s try. We’d better take our lunch, though. It’ll 
be a long walk, and we’ll get hungry.” 

They bought ham and bread and apples, and started 
up the stairs of the nearest building. Up and up they 
climbed, floor after floor. Julie’s legs ached. After 
stopping to eat their lunch, they went on. At last Julie 
sat down on the steps and cried: 

“Jerry, I can’t move another inch. Seems to me we’ve 
gone miles already.” 

“Oh, Julie, it can’t be much farther. Wait, I’ll ask this 
man.” Jerry ran up to a man standing in what looked 
like a small cage. “Sir, could you tell me how far it is 
to the top from here?” 

“Thirty floors” he answered. 

“Jumping catfish! Julie never can walk that far.” 

“Walk?” The man laughed. “You don’t need to 
walk. Just take this elevator.” 



A Great City 


65 


Jerry and Julie stepped into the cage. The elevator 
man shut a door behind them and pulled a handle. 
They whizzed upward at breathless speed. Julie felt 
queer inside; her heart beat fast. 

“Here you are,” said the elevator man, opening an¬ 
other door. “And don’t try to walk down. Just press 
this button here, and I’ll come back up after you.” 

From behind a high wall, Jerry and Julie looked over 
the great city of New York. There seemed no end to it. 
Skyscrapers towered all around them. Airplanes roared 
overhead like great birds. Far below in the streets, the 
people were black dots. Automobiles and street cars 
looked like toys. So did the boats on the river. 

“Gee, this is a big place!” Jerry whistled. 

“You’re right,” answered a man who was enjoying 
the view. “It’s one of the two largest cities in the world 
—the other is London.” 

“But where do people live? I don’t see any houses.” 

“Not from here,” replied the man. “Farther out, to 
be sure, there are houses. But many, many people live 
one floor above the other in huge buildings close to their 
work. So many million people live on Manhattan 
Island and all around it that they can’t help piling up 
on top of each other! ” 

“Where do they raise their food?” Julie wanted to 



66 


Away with the Circus 


know. “There’s not a field or a garden in sight. Just 
miles of stone and brick.” 

“The whole country feeds New York,” answered the 
man. “Trains bring in flour from Minnesota, meat from 
Chicago, vegetables and fruit from the South and West. 
You don’t need to worry about that.” 

Before long it was time to meet Uncle Bill at the 
ferry station. They pressed the button for the elevator 
and whizzed down to the street. “Good-by,” called the 
elevator man. “Don’t lose your way.” 

“As though we would,” Jerry said to Julie. “I saw 
how the streets run when we were up in the skyscraper. 
This is the way we came. No—this is.” 

They were lost! Crowds pushed them along the 
sidewalk. Everyone seemed to know where he was 
going but Jerry and Julie. They had left the skyscrapers 
behind, and now were walking along poor dirty streets 
alive with ragged children. The people were foreign 
and talked in a foreign tongue. It was all very strange, 
not at all like the America they knew. 

Then Jerry and Julie saw black smoke pouring out 
a building, and frightened people running to the win¬ 
dows. Big red fire engines dashed up, with bells clang¬ 
ing and whistles blowing. The firemen raised long 
ladders and carried people safely down. Streams of 



A Great City 


67 


water shot into the flames. There was a smell of water 
on burned black wood, and the fire was put out before 
it could run from street to street. 



























































































' 




























































































































































































































t ■ 






























































































































































































JERRY IS A HERO 












VII 


T HE fire excitement made Jerry and Julie forget 
that they were lost. But when it was over, they 
were glad to tell their troubles to a friendly 
Irish policeman. He told them to take the sub¬ 
way back to the ferry station. 

“Subway? What’s that?” Jerry wanted to know. 
“You’ll see.” The policeman led them underground 
down a stairway, showing them where to deposit their 
fares. Jerry and Julie boarded a train that came thun¬ 
dering toward them through a long tunnel, and then 
sped away. Julie was afraid to be traveling so fast under¬ 
ground. She thought perhaps they would hit the bottom 
of a skyscraper. On and on sped the train. Jerry and 
Julie were so bewildered that they did not get off at the 
ferry station. Now the tunnel was dark with only a 
few lights here and there. 

“Where are we?” Jerry asked the man sitting next 
to him. 

“Under the river,” came the answer. 

Under the Hudson River? Every minute Jerry and 

7i 




72 


Away with the Circus 


Julie expected to hear the water rushing down on them. 
When the train stopped and most of the people got out, 
Jerry and Julie followed in fear and haste. They didn’t 
choose to be left alone under the river. 

They climbed a stairway. Much to their surprise, 
they came out on a street. They were on the other side 
of the river—back in New Jersey again! 

Not far away was the ferry station where they had 
taken the boat that very morning. Soon they were trav¬ 
eling back across the river—on top of it, not under it, 
this time. From the deck of the ferry boat they saw a 
great ocean-going ship coming in, a queen of the sea 
that towered over them. It was a wonderful sight. 
Jerry and Julie knew they would not forget it soon. 

When they reached New York, they found Uncle Bill 
at the ferry station. He had been waiting two hours and 
was very anxious, but the story of their adventures in 
the subway made him laugh. 

With Uncle Bill for a guide, they now felt much 
more sure of themselves in the great city. He took them 
uptown where the store windows were full of beautiful 
things. There were diamonds and furs and lovely 
dresses and hats. 

“Look at this dear little straw hat with the violets on 
it!” cried Julie. “I wish I could buy it.” 




They saw a great ocean-going ship 
























Jerry Is a Hero 


75 


“Why don’t you?” asked Uncle Bill. 

“It must cost a lot of money.” 

“We’ll find out.” They went into the store, leaving 
Jerry standing on the sidewalk watching the cars whiz 
past. 

Julie looked so pretty in the hat that she knew she 
must have it. Luckily the price was not high. She felt 
proud paying for it with money she had earned herself. 
And she still had money left. She wore the new hat, 
and put the old one in a bag. When they came out of 
the store, they found that Jerry had just bought a mouth 
organ and was trying to play Yan\ee Doodle on it. 

“My goodness! New York is fun!” cried Julie. “But 
it’s hard to hold onto your money when you see so 
many things you want to buy,” she added thoughtfully. 
“And I’ve got to save the rest of mine to help Jerry buy 
Grandmother’s dress.” 

Soon they climbed a stairway and boarded a train 
which ran along a track high above the streets. 

“Trains up in the air, and trains down underground! 
Remember the day that I told you! Now we can see 
for ourselves! ” Jerry burst out. 

Through second story windows Julie saw girls trim¬ 
ming hats and men busily sewing at machines. 

“Those dresses you saw in the store windows were 



7 6 


Away with the Circus 


made in places like this. So was your hat and this suit 
of mine. Nearly everybody in the country wears clothes 
sent out from New York/’ explained Uncle Bill. 

After they left the train, they walked over to the 
Hudson River and took a boat. After a short trip, they 
landed on an island and stood beneath the wonderful 
figure of the Goddess of Liberty. She held the torch 
of Liberty high in her hand to show the world that 
America is the land of freedom. Many steps led up to 
her crowned head, but Julie and Jerry climbed them 
all and at last looked out through the eyes of the God¬ 
dess. They saw great ocean ships below them. 

“Back here is Ellis Island,” Uncle Bill pointed out. 
“I stopped there when I was just a small boy coming 
from the Old Country with your grandmother and 
grandfather. There were thousands of us—people from 
all over Europe. We were all sick from the sea, sick 
with thoughts of home. But we wanted to come to the 
Promised Land, and here we were.” 

“The Promised Land?” Jerry asked. “I never thought 
of America that way.” 

“That’s because you were born here,” Uncle Bill re¬ 
plied. “You don’t know how lucky you are. Since its 
first years, America has been the Land of Promise to 
folk across the sea.” 



Jerry Is a Hero 


77 


It was growing dark when they again boarded the 
boat. The lights of New York City twinkled like stars. 
Suddenly they heard a woman cry, “My baby! My 
baby! She’s fallen overboard!” 

Jerry was an excellent swimmer and without a 
thought for himself he dived quickly and swam to the 
child struggling in the water. He caught her dress just 
as a big boat cut toward them. Already they were lost 
in its black shadow. Surely they would drown! Julie 
held her lucky stone tightly and prayed. 

Somehow the boat turned away with a ringing of 
alarm bells. Somehow the two were safe at last. Jerry 
was a hero, though he had not wanted to be. Why, 
anyone would save a baby! 














A MILLION YEARS AGO 












VIII 


E VERY afternoon and evening the circus began 
with a grand parade around the tent. All the 
circus folk dressed up in gay clothes and joined 
the parade, so that it would look very long and 
important. Jerry wore an Uncle Sam suit and walked 
on stilts that made him eight feet tall. Julie rode proud¬ 
ly on a camel. She had a red feather skirt and a crown 
of red feathers, for she was supposed to be a princess. 
The camel moved from side to side as he walked—it 
was like being on a boat. 

The rest of the day Julie helped the cook, mended 
clothes and sewed on spangles, and helped to nurse the 
sick animals. She always had plenty to do. Once she 
made a baby elephant hold its mouth wide open while 
Uncle Bill gave it medicine. When a monkey had a 
bad cold, she wrapped it in warm blankets. 

One of the lion cubs was so small that he could not 
fight his brothers, so he did not get enough to eat. At 
last the lion trainer handed the poor little thing to 
Julie and said, “Here. You’ll have to bring him up.” 


81 






82 


Away with the Circus 


The cub looked like a big yellow kitten with his long 
whiskers and bright eyes. Julie named him Bingo and 
fed him milk from a baby’s bottle. Soon he was round 
and fat. At night, he wouldn’t stay in his box under 
her berth on the train. He slept in her arms, a soft 
warm ball of fur. If she moved her feet, he jumped at 
them. 

One morning, when she woke up, her face was cov¬ 
ered with bits of white. She saw Bingo chasing feathers 
all over the berth. He had scratched a hole in the 
pillow. Sometimes he climbed down from the berth 
and chewed at every shoe he could find. This made the 
circus people very angry in the morning. 

Jerry scolded when Bingo jumped up and stuck his 
paw through a piece of paper. Jerry was writing down 
numbers, and now he had to start all over again. He 
was going to add up the miles he had traveled since 


he left home: 

Home to Charlotte, North Carolina.... 650 miles 

Charlotte to Norfolk, Virginia.280 miles 

Norfolk to Washington.160 miles 

Washington to New York City.210 miles 

New York City to where the circus is in 
Pennsylvania .110 miles 


The first time he added the numbers, he got 1390 







A Million Years Ago 


83 


miles for the answer. When he added again, he got 
1410. Julie’s answer was 1470, and Uncle Bill’s was 
1380. 

Anyway, they were well over a thousand miles from 
home. It looked like a very short way on the map that 
hung on the wall of the dining tent. On the map the 
states looked no bigger than pieces of a patchwork 
quilt, Julie said. Arkansas was colored yellow, and 
North Carolina green; Virginia was pink, and New 
York State was purple. 

“A patchwork quilt like the United States would 
have rivers running through it and lakes spotting it,” 
said Uncle Bill. “The edge of the quilt would be very 
ragged, with Texas and Florida sticking out, and the 
shores all cut up with bays. The quilt would not be at 
all neat, for there would be lumps for the mountains 
and hollows for the valleys. It would be like an old 
quilt used for a long time. Like an old quilt spotted by 
the rain and faded by the sun. The land is as old as 
time and goes clear back to the beginning of things.” 

Uncle Bill went on, “Millions of years ago—long 
before men lived on the earth—giant ferns grew in hot 
swamps, and strange terrible monsters crawled out of 
the mud. Some ran on their hind legs and leaped with 
great bloodthirsty jaws upon other monsters as big as 



8 4 


Away with the Circus 


railroad engines,” he said. “Would you like to see one 
of these jungles from ages past?” 

“Where?” cried Jerry and Julie. 

“Down in a coal mine. We’re right in the coal¬ 
mining country here in Pennsylvania,” Uncle Bill an¬ 
swered. 

“What does coal have to do with jungles?” 

“You’ll see.” 

Uncle Bill knew the head man at one of the mines. 
Very early the next morning they traveled far down 
into the earth in a cage like an elevator. Many feet 
down they stepped off into a well-lighted tunnel so low 
that they barely stood up straight in it. Coal was all 
around them, black and shiny, the same sort of coal they 
burned in the stove back home. 

“Here is your jungle.” Uncle Bill pointed at the 
coal. “Millions of years ago the giant ferns were buried 
under the mud at the bottom of great oceans. More and 
more mud piled on the strange jungle plants and 
pressed them harder and harder. At last they turned 
into coal. 

“Here, I’ll prove it to you.” He looked carefully 
along the wall of coal. “See?” 

There in the coal Jerry and Julie saw the print of a 
fern leaf millions of years old! 




“Here is your jungle” 







































A Million Years Ago 


87 


“What happened to the monsters?” Jerry wanted to 
know. 

“They too slipped into the mud and were buried, 
along with even older creatures. Today we use what 
is left of them and the age-old plants. We call it oil.” 

They saw miners cutting the coal away with a ma¬ 
chine and loading the coal on a small train. The miners 
were black from the coal, and they were working hard. 
But they stopped to grin when Julie cried: 

“Why, look at that canary bird! What’s he doing 
clear down here?” 

“I’ll tell you, miss,” said one of the miners. “That 
bird is our danger signal. When he falls over, we try to 
get out of here double-quick. It’s a sign of poison gas.” 

Just then they heard a roar and a crash far away in 
the mine. Julie jumped with fright. 

“They’re blowing out another tunnel through the 
coal,” explained the miner. He spoke broken English, 
for he was a foreigner like most of the miners. “They’ll 
hold up the roof of that tunnel with posts like those you 
see here. Even so, the roofs sometimes cave in and trap 
us down here for days. We don’t have food or water. 
Some of us never get out alive.” 

“I should think you’d be afraid to be a miner!” Julie 
cried. 



Away with the Circus 


“Well, somebody has to work the coal. And we need 
the money for our wives and children.” 

On the way back to the circus grounds, Jerry and 
Julie played a sort of game. Julie started it by exclaim¬ 
ing, “Think how cold I’d be in winter if nobody mined 
coal!” 

Jerry answered, “Yes. And nobody would have wood 
for houses if men didn’t cut down trees in the forests.” 

Each tried to think faster than the other about what 
would happen if everyone didn’t do his work. 

“The city people would starve if the farmers didn’t 
feed them.” 

“And the farmers couldn’t buy farm machinery and 
clothes and automobiles from the cities.” 

“If men didn’t run boats and trains, things couldn’t 
be carried from one end of the country to the other.” 

“And if they didn’t pick cotton down South, the 
mills would have to stop running. There’d be no cotton 
cloth.” 

Uncle Bill said, “You two are right. Everyone’s work 
is important. Nobody is so small that his job isn’t part 
of the big work that has to be done to keep everyone 
warm and fed and happy.” 



RUNAWAY ELEPHANTS 















IX 


O NE night it was very quiet on the circus 
grounds. The circus was stopping for two 
days, and all the show people went to bed 
early for a good rest. Monkeys slept with 
their babies in their arms, camels stamped, and dream¬ 
ing lions growled softly. The elephant keepers stretched 
out on piles of hay between the elephants. Outside the 
tent, the sky was bright with stars. 

“It’s too quiet,” said Uncle Bill to Jerry. “I don’t 
like it. Don’t you see the elephants waving their trunks 
and looking around nervous as cats? That means a 
storm, or I miss my guess.” 

About midnight, a clap of thunder woke them all, 
men and animals. Flashing forks of lightning streaked 
across the sky, and rain pounded down in a cloudburst. 

“Get the elephants out,” shouted Uncle Bill, spring¬ 
ing to his feet. 

Before the men could obey, the elephants pulled up 
their stakes like so many toothpicks. Squealing with 
fear, they dashed around and around the animal tent. 

9i 




92 


Away with the Circus 


Poles crashed, and cages tipped over. Then the mad¬ 
dened beasts tore through the side of the tent and es¬ 
caped into the storm. Uncle Bill leaped on a horse and 
was after them. Jerry followed close behind, with the 
other circus men. 

They found a trail of broken chicken coops and 
torn-up trees. In one place an elephant had crashed 
right through a small house, in the front door and out 
the back. The people popped their heads out of the 
windows in terror. 

Then the storm stopped as suddenly as it had begun. 
By the time Uncle Bill and Jerry arrived in the main 
street of the town, they found the elephant Nancy 
sticking her trunk through the broken window of a 
store and eating bananas. Jo-Jo was feeding himself 
loaves of bread, while Mabel tossed up eggs and let 
them drop on her head. Amos squirted water from a 
fountain all over himself, and Harry blew into his own 
big flapping ears to show how happy he was. 

When Nancy saw Uncle Bill, she knelt down and 
whined softly through her trunk. Nancy was the ele¬ 
phant queen and ruled all the other elephants. Now 
she seemed to say, “If you’ll forgive us this time, we’ll 
never run away again.” 

“Not until the next time you get scared,” said Uncle 



Runaway Elephants 


93 


Bill under his breath. “You ought to be ashamed of 
yourself, an old girl like you.” But he knew it would 
do no good to punish her. “Get up, Nancy,” he ordered. 

As proudly as though nothing had happened, Nancy 
led the march back to the circus grounds. Here every¬ 
thing still was wild excitement. One of the lions had 
escaped when his cage tipped over. Even now he might 
be prowling through the town! 

Men were out searching with lights and guns, fearful 
that he would spring at them from every shadow. Sud¬ 
denly, ahead of them, they heard an angry roar. 

“Don’t shoot,” cried the woman lion trainer. She 
walked slowly toward the lion, who was hiding in the 
tall, wet grass. He roared again. “Behave yourself, 
Rex. Stop growling at me. Do you hear? Stop growl¬ 
ing.” 

She stood there talking to Rex until the men dropped 
a strong net over him. He fought and clawed, but soon 
he was back behind the bars of a cage. 

“That lion wouldn’t know what to do with himself 
if he did run wild,” said one of the men. “He’d miss 
his meals. Always lived in a cage. Lucky we didn’t 
have to shoot him, though. He’s worth a thousand 
dollars.” 

“Gee, how much is an elephant worth?” asked Jerry. 



94 


Away with the Circus 


“Oh, at least a couple of thousand. Thinking of 
starting a show of your own, son?” 

“N-no. Not for a while.” 

The circus had to pay a great deal of money to cover 
the damage the elephants had caused. This was only 
the beginning of the circus folk’s troubles. Every day 
now it rained. Everywhere they stopped the ground 
was deep in mud. When the wagons became stuck, the 
elephants had to push them out. Many of the elephants 
were lazy and only made believe they were working. 
If wise old Nancy caught one doing this, she hit him 
with her trunk and twisted his ear. 

Acting in the big tent was not very pleasant either 
during the storms. The lions and tigers were nervous 
and clawed cruelly at their trainer. Julie’s friend Flora- 
bel missed her hold on a high swing when the. wind 
struck her. She fell into a net far below and was scared 
to death. But she climbed right up and tried again. All 
the circus folk knew that, whatever happened, “The 
show must go on!” 

The worst of it was that very few people came to see 
the circus. They were afraid to sit in the tent while it 
was storming. Soon the circus ran short of money. 

Meanwhile, the animals went right on eating. If 
they were not fed well, they would become cross and 




The elephants had to push them out 


























Runaway Elephants 


97 


dangerous. The big cats ate sides of beef, and the ele¬ 
phants fed themselves great mouthfuls of hay, besides 
many cabbages and loaves of bread. They stole food 
from each other, and begged for peanuts and ice cream. 

The circus folk were not paid, and did not have much 
to eat. One night all they had was lard and bread and 
tea. Even the Fat Lady was beginning to lose weight, 
and the clowns forgot to be jolly. Julie was so cold and 
wet and hungry that she wished hard to be right back 
home again. Everyone was full of gloom. Suddenly 
Uncle Bill had an idea. He said: 

“There are many farmers around here who raise a 
great deal of food but don’t have much money. Why 
can’t we trade circus tickets for food? The farmers 
would come to the circus even in the rain, or I miss 
my guess.” 

“Good! ” shouted the other men. “Even if your idea 
doesn’t work, it is surely worth trying.” 

Soon the circus grounds were crowded with farmers 
trading bales of hay for blocks of tickets. They brought 
in eggs and meat and vegetables to trade for tickets. 
The circus folk and animals were sure of their meals 


once more. 















GIANTS OF TODAY 
























X 


AT last the rain stopped. Business was good again 
as the circus journeyed on through flat coun- 
A \ try between fields of wheat and corn, stop¬ 
ping only at cities. Nearly every farm had a 
big red barn and a tower beside it. 

‘‘That tower is a silo where the farmer stores up corn 
for cattle feed,” explained Uncle Bill. “This is a rich 
farming country now, but once it was a wilderness. The 
early settlers had to fight with the Indians.” 

Many of the cities were black with factory smoke. 
At night Julie saw flames shooting into the sky from 
black shapes like fearful giants. These were the steel 
mills where iron was made into steel in fiery furnaces. 
Steel for ships, for railroads, for the skeletons of sky¬ 
scrapers. 

Now the railroad tracks ran close together with trains 
whistling past each other. Skyscrapers towered up 
ahead, and Jerry and Julie were in the great city of 
Chicago. The circus raised its tents in a beautiful park 
near Lake Michigan, a lake so big that it looked like 

IOI 




102 


Away with the Circus 


the ocean. Uncle Bill showed them on the map that it 
was one of the Great Lakes, a long busy water road east 
to west, west to east. 

“Old Mother Nature made the Great Lakes as easily 
as you would dig holes in the sand. When Old Nature 
starts to do something, you can’t stop her any more than 
you can an elephant,” said Uncle Bill. “Many thou¬ 
sand years ago, ice piled up so high over the northern 
part of America that only the mountains stuck out. 
The ice carried rocks and dug with them. When the 
ice melted, it left many fish ponds behind it. The 
biggest of these were the Great Lakes.” 

In Chicago, Jerry and Julie found three letters wait¬ 
ing for them—one from Melissa to Jerry, one from 
George to Julie, and one from their grandmother to 
both. The letters made them very lonesome. 

“Why don’t you talk to all three of them?” asked 
Uncle Bill, seeing how gloomy Julie and Jerry looked. 

“How?” 

“Over the telephone.” 

“Telephone?” cried Jerry. “I did that once—talked 
to Jacob’s store in town. But Grandmother is so far 
away. She couldn’t hear me.” 

“Surely she could. People talk all over the United 
States that way. They even talk to people in Europe.” 



Giants of Today 


103 


“Really?” Jerry was surprised. “But Grandmother 
doesn’t have a telephone. Neither do Melissa or 
George.” 

“Just send her a telegram telling the three of them to 
be at Jacob’s store at nine o’clock tonight. Then you 
can talk to them over the telephone.” 

“How do you send a telegram?” 

“I’ll show you. We must go to a telegraph office.” 

The two walked away from the circus grounds and 
found a telegraph office. Jerry took a piece of paper and 
wrote down what he wanted to say. Then he handed 
the paper to a girl and paid her some money. He 
watched the paper closely, for he thought it would 
vanish in some strange way and fly down South to his 
grandmother. But the girl just looked at the paper and 
pressed down keys on a machine. 

“What do I have to do next?” asked Jerry, still watch¬ 
ing the paper. 

“That’s all,” said Uncle Bill. “You’ve sent your tele¬ 
gram. They’ll be getting it in your home town right 
now.” 

“How could they? The paper’s still here.” 

Uncle Bill laughed. “The girl sent out your words 
over a wire by electricity. Electricity travels many miles 
along the wire in a single second.” 



104 


Away with the Circus 


“Sounds like a fairy story,” cried Jerry. “Can you see 
electricity?” 

“Sometimes. You saw plenty of it a couple of weeks 
ago during the storms. Remember all the lightning? 
That was electricity.” 

At nine o’clock Jerry called Jacob’s store and heard 
his grandmother, Melissa, and George talk as clearly as 
though they were right across a table in Chicago. 

“Hello, Grandmother,” said Jerry. “How are you?” 

“Fine, thank you, Jeremiah. Are you taking good 
care of Julia?” 

“Sure. She’s here waiting to talk to you.” 

Their grandmother said she was glad they liked their 
jobs with the circus. George and Melissa hoped they 
would come home soon. It was almost like seeing the 
three, and Julie and Jerry were happy again. The tele¬ 
phone call cost a good deal of money, but it was so 
wonderful! 

“Is electricity part of the telephone too?” Jerry asked 
Uncle Bill. He was anxious to know more about elec¬ 
tricity. 

“Oh, yes. It carries the sound of your voice in a 
special way. Electricity does many marvelous things. 
See those lights up in the ceiling?” 

“Yes. They’re the same kind they have in the stores 






Julie tal\ed to Grandmother 




























Giants of Today 


107 


back home,” said Julie. “Some of the houses have them 
too. You don’t have to clean them like kerosene lamps, 
and they’re so much brighter.” 

“Well, there’s a twist of fine wire inside the glass of 
each light,” Uncle Bill explained. “Electricity flows 
into the wire and gets it so hot that it gives out light. 
You know yourself how the end of a poker glows red 
when you stick it in a stove. Much the same thing 
happens in an electric light, only the wire gets hotter 
than red. It gets white-hot.” 

“Where does this electricity come from?” Jerry want¬ 
ed to know. 

“From great power houses. It is sent out over wires, 
and runs machines too. Great inventors like Thomas 
Edison made electricity the tool of man.” 

Julie thought a moment and then said, “When I was 
little, I used to read in fairy books about giants. They 
could walk hundreds of miles in one step and shout 
half way around the world. But I guess nowadays all 
of us are giants. We can travel swiftly on trains, and 
send our words far and wide with the telephone and 
telegraph. And I guess those old fairy tale giants would 
look small next to our skyscrapers. My goodness!” 











JERRY RUNS AWAY 




















































































































XI 


O NE of Jerry’s circus friends wanted him to 
stay in Chicago and work in the stockyards 
where thousands of animals were killed for 
meat. They’d have a gay time spending their 
money in the big city on Saturday nights, said the boy. 
Jerry replied, “Julie would be angry if I left her.” 
“Just run away from her. Why not?” The other boy 
grinned. “Afraid of your sister?” 

“No, I’m not. I’ll stay in Chicago if I’ve a mind to.” 
But Jerry thought about the joker stone in his pocket. 
He remembered what his wise old grandmother had 
said. The stone would bring him bad luck if he ran 
away from Julie. Well, he’d just lose that old stone. 
Perhaps then he wouldn’t have bad luck. He dropped 
the stone on the ground. 

Next day Uncle Bill said, “I’ve found something of 
yours, Jerry. Here’s that stone you always carry around.” 

Jerry lost the stone again, but the Fat Lady picked 
it up and gave it back to him. Again he tried to get rid 
of the stone, but the snake charmer found it. 


hi 



Away with the Circus 


112 


Then Jerry’s circus friend, whose name was Ralph, 
grew tired of waiting for Jerry. “What’s the matter?” 
he asked. “Can’t you make up your mind? We’ve only 
got a few more days in Chicago before we hit west.” 

Jerry knew that was true. Only yesterday Julie had 
come to remind him of that. She thought they should 
try to get a day off in Chicago to buy their grandmother 
her purple silk dress. 

“Still afraid of your sister?” Ralph teased. 

“Who’s afraid?” Jerry wanted to know. “I’m ready 
to go when you are.” 

They agreed not to go out through the front entrance 
to the circus grounds because someone might see them. 
Instead, they would work their way around the tents 
to the back of the grounds and jump the fence that 
marked the end of the park. This was Ralph’s idea, 
and Jerry was surprised to find that his friend had 
planned all so carefully. Jerry himself didn’t quite like 
leaving this way. 

But Ralph argued, “All right, suppose your sister sees 
you going out the regular way. How far’ll you get?” 

So Jerry went back to the tent where he slept and 
kept his clothes. He took out the wallet, in which he 
had been keeping the money he saved, and counted the 
bills—three fives were fifteen dollars and five ones made 




That time he managed a footing 















Jerry Runs Away 


“5 


twenty in all. But part was to go toward buying his 
grandmother’s purple silk dress. Some day he’d go 
home. Jerry separated two five-dollar bills. Then he 
remembered the stone. He couldn’t lose it, so he might 
as well take it along. He wrapped it in the two five- 
dollar bills and placed them in the wallet and put the 
wallet in his pocket. That was money he woudn’t spend 
for himself. The rest of the money went into the purse 
in which he usually carried his change. That would 
buy him food and a place to sleep in Chicago until he 
found work. 

He got to the end of the circus grounds before his 
friend, Ralph, so he waited. Soon Ralph came running 
up. He was breathless. 

“Hurry!” Ralph said. “I just passed your sister and 
she called to me and wanted to know where you were. 
I didn’t answer. Hurry! Give me a boost!” 

Jerry shouldered his friend’s weight and Ralph sprang 
over the fence. It was harder for Jerry, who had no one 
to help him. He jumped several times before he could 
get a footing. The third time he jumped, he thought 
he heard something drop, but that time he managed a 
footing. 

“Well, don’t take all day!” Ralph called from the 
other side. 



n6 


Away with the Circus 


Jerry did not look back, but instead scrambled to the 
top of the fence and dropped down to Ralph. 

Uncle Bill had told Julie that she and Jerry might 
take the afternoon off, either that day or the next, and 
go into town to buy their grandmother’s dress. That 
was why Julie was looking all over the circus grounds 
for her brother. She wanted to tell him. He was no¬ 
where that he should have been, so she shouted at Ralph 
when she saw him rush by, “Have you seen Jerry?” 

But Ralph ran on, without answering. At first, Julie 
thought that Ralph had not heard her. Then she began 
to run after him. She got to the end of the circus 
grounds just in time to see Jerry jump the third time 
and get a footing. She saw something drop. Then she 
watched Jerry scramble up and go over the fence. 

It was such a surprise that Julie stood right where 
she was. Then she knew what was happening. Jerry 
was doing the very thing that their grandmother had 
warned him against. He was running away from the 
circus! 

“Goodness!” Julie thought. “This is dreadful. I 
must do something right away. I must find Uncle Bill.” 

Had she lost her good-luck stone? She reached into 
her pocket. No, it was there, tied tight in the corner 
of her handkerchief. She breathed a sigh of relief. And 



Jerry Runs Away 


117 


there on the ground, a few feet away, lay whatever it 
was that she had seen Jerry drop when he jumped. 
She walked over and picked up Jerry’s wallet. Inside 
were the two five-dollar bills and the joker stone. 

Julie laughed out loud and told herself, “He can’t 
live without money, so he’ll be back before long. The 
joker stone fooled him right at the start! ” 











JERRY’S NIGHT IN THE CITY 

























XII 


ERRY fell when he jumped over the fence and it 
took him a minute to pick himself up. 



“Hurry!” Ralph urged. “Let’s get away from 


here!” 


Jerry was in no such hurry as Ralph. In a way he 
hated to leave the circus. He had made many friends 
among the circus people and animals. Even the sight 
of the brown circus tents with Lake Michigan’s fresh 
breezes swelling and flapping the canvas did something 
to Jerry. And then there was Uncle Bill! Jerry turned 
about and looked back. 

“Always knew you were scared,” Ralph said. 

“Who’s scared?” Jerry cried. “I’m not.” After that 
he didn’t look back. 

They turned from blue Lake Michigan and walked 
west toward Chicago’s downtown—the Loop, Ralph 
called it. North and south for miles, as far north and 
as far south as Jerry could see, giant skyscrapers faced 
Lake Michigan. Jerry caught his breath. Nowhere, 
not even in New York, had he ever seen such a sight. 


121 




122 


Away with the Circus 


Surely, in a city like this, Jerry thought, a boy who was 
strong and willing to work could find work to do. 

“Where are the stockyards?” he asked Ralph. “Shall 
we go there first and see if they can use us?” 

“Plenty of time to look for work,” Ralph surprised 
Jerry. “I’m in no hurry. As long as I have a little 
money in my pocket I’m going to have some fun. How 
about it?” 

Jerry did not agree with his friend. He thought they 
should try to find work first of all. But it was late in 
the afternoon. And now they were right in the heart 
of Chicago’s Loop. Signs everywhere called their at¬ 
tention first to one wonder and then to another. Jerry 
had been in New York, true enough, and seen some¬ 
thing of a big city’s life and ways. But that had been 
different. Then he had been with Julie, and they were 
both doing what Uncle Bill had planned they should 
do. Now he was out in a great city with no one to 
depend upon but himself. Everything he saw seemed 
to invite him. He felt, all at once, that he owned the 
great city and that everything in it was his. Tomorrow 
morning, he decided, would be time enough to look 
for work. 

“Suits me,” he told Ralph. “What’ll we do?” 

Ralph had been in Chicago before and gone about 



Jerry's Night in the City 


123 

on his own. “How much money have you got?” he 
asked Jerry. 

“Ten dollars,” Jerry said. He did not mean to touch 
the money he was saving for his grandmother’s dress. 

“Is that all?” Ralph was disappointed. 

“That’s two weeks’ pay,” Jerry said proudly. “I 
figured I could live on that for a few days and by that 
time I’d have work.” 

Ralph thought for a minute. Then he said, “We 
might go out to Riverview Park. Yes, I guess that’s 
our best bet.” 

“Suits me,” Jerry agreed. He did not care to have 
Ralph know that he had no idea about where they 
were going. 

They got on a street car that cut across the great city. 
Jerry soon saw that there were parts of Chicago very 
different from that first beautiful sight of tall sky¬ 
scrapers facing Lake Michigan. Behind those tall build¬ 
ings were factories and poor-looking small houses and 
brick houses, which Ralph called apartments and flats, 
and which spread seemingly without any end. Jerry 
remembered what his grandmother had said, “A small 
town’s good enough for me. I like to breathe clean, 
fresh air and hear the birds sing when I wake in the 
morning.” 



124 


Away with the Circus 


The street car twisted and turned and went on and 
on. Now they were passing through a still different 
part of the city. Here the houses and apartment build¬ 
ings were larger and they looked newer. They had 
little squares of grass, too, in front. 

At last the conductor shouted, “Riverview Amuse¬ 
ment Park,” and Jerry followed Ralph out of the 
street car. 

Jerry had thought that there was no sight like brown 
circus tents spreading over circus grounds, especially 
once he knew all about the life that went on inside those 
tents and knew all the animals that lived there, too. 
But what he saw now took his breath away. Giant 
round things, with train tracks running around and 
around clear to their tops, cut into the sky. Already 
they were lighted with what looked to Jerry like mil¬ 
lions and millions of electric lights. Then Jerry saw a 
tiny car climb to the very highest point on one of these 
tracks and suddenly drop. There was a scream. 

Ralph laughed. “Roller coaster,” he said. “Want to 
try one?” 

Jerry watched the car spin around the downward 
circle. He felt dizzy just from watching. Then he saw 
a car on still another roller coaster climb to the top of 
its tracks and drop suddenly. Again he heard the 




Jerry was sure he would fall out 























































Jerry's Night in the City 


12 7 


scream. From the outside he could see other wonderful 
things, too, all lighted so that they looked unreal and 
magical. 

“Shall we go in?” Ralph said. 

“Sure,” Jerry said, and started to plunge through the 
gate. 

“Tickets, please,” someone stopped him. 

“Go ahead,” Ralph said. 

Jerry pulled out a dollar bill. 

“Buy mine, too,” Ralph told him. “I’ll pay you back 
later.” 

Jerry and Ralph took many rides on the roller coast¬ 
ers. At first, when the car dropped suddenly or made 
a swift turn, Jerry was sure that he would fall out and 
he screamed in real fright. But soon he became used to 
it. After that he wasn’t afraid. 

There were other things to do at Riverview Park. 
A giant wheel with seats along its rim, called a Ferris 
Wheel, lifted people high from the ground and swung 
them around and around. From the top of the wheel 
the whole park could be seen. Boats shot passengers 
down a steep slide into the water. There were games 
of chance to play, with tempting rewards to the winner. 

Jerry and Ralph tried everything. They even entered 
the dark House of Mystery and sat inside for a minute 



128 


Away with the Circus 


while a fat woman with long green ear rings told their 
fortunes. “Beware of someone you trust,” she told 
Jerry. “He will deceive you!” 

Jerry worried a little about the warning when he and 
Ralph were again outside the dark House of Mystery. 

“Come on,” Ralph urged him. “Let’s try something 
else.” 

Jerry pulled out his coin purse. All his money was 
gone. At first it did not seem possible. He had had 
two whole weeks’ pay. But there was his empty purse. 
He began to count back. There were the roller coaster 
rides, and the Ferris Wheel rides, and all the rest. And 
somehow Ralph had been unable to find his money just 
at the moment he needed it. He had kept saying, “I’ll 
pay you back.” So Jerry had paid for them both. 

The empty purse frightened Jerry. He reached into 
the pocket where he had put his wallet just to make 
sure that he still had it. That, too, was gone. Some¬ 
how he had lost it. 

“What are we waiting for?” Ralph asked just then. 

“Ralph,” Jerry said, “my money’s all gone. I guess 
you’ll have to pay me back now.” 

Ralph looked at Jerry in a new, hard way. “You 
mean you’re broke!” 

Jerry tried to laugh. “I guess that’s right.” 






Jerry's Night in the City 


129 


Ralph shrugged his shoulders. He said, “Well, that’s 
your hard luck,” and started off by himself. 

Jerry went after him and jerked him back by the arm. 
“What do you mean—my hard luck? What about me?” 

“I don’t know,” Ralph said. “Go back to the circus. 
I can’t. The big boss fired me today. That’s why I was 
in such a hurry to get away.” Then Ralph broke loose 
and disappeared in the crowd before Jerry could find 
him again. 

Jerry stood very still and looked over Riverview Park. 
The brilliant lights still glittered from all around. But 
they were magic no longer. He felt tired, too, and 
hungry. And what was much worse, he was disappoint¬ 
ed in Ralph. Ralph had pretended to be his friend, and 
he had fooled him, taken his money, and then left him 
when his money was all gone. 

Now a terrible thought came to Jerry. He saw that 
Ralph had really treated him no worse than he, himself, 
had treated his kind Uncle Bill when he had run away 
from the circus. Hadn’t he taken a job from his uncle 
and sneaked off without saying a word when it suited 
him to go? Jerry knew that somehow he had to get 
back to the circus. Uncle Bill must never know. He 
must never feel disappointed in him. Jerry began to 
walk back. 









GRANDMOTHER’S DRESS 













XIII 


I T was daylight before Jerry again saw the brown 
circus tents standing up against blue Lake Michi¬ 
gan. He had never seen a more welcome sight. 
But he was far too tired and weak to be happy. 
Half dead, he stumbled across the circus grounds and 
into the tent where he had always slept. There was his 
bunk, just as he’d left it. Jerry dropped into it and, 
almost before he could close his eyes, he fell asleep. 

He dreamed that he was whirling through the sky 
in a roller coaster. Then the roller coaster made a sharp 
drop and a sudden curve. Jerry woke with a start. 
Everyone else was up and about his regular work. He 
remembered that today was the last day that the circus 
was stopping in Chicago. There would be much for 
him to do. His legs still pained from his all-night walk. 
Jerry groaned as he got up and stood on them. But 
he made up his mind that no matter how badly they 
hurt or how tired he felt, he would do his work just 
the same. No one else would have to do more than his 
share because he had run away. 


133 




134 


Away with the Circus 


Julie found him brushing the horses. 

“Hello, Jerry,” she said. 

Jerry said, “Hello, Julie,” and kept right on with his 
work. “Horses are certainly dirty today,” Jerry added. 

“Urn-hum,” Julie said. “I can see that they are.” 
She waited a minute and then she said, “Don’t you 
think we’d better go and get Grandmother’s dress 
today? We won’t be in a city as big as Chicago with 
so many dresses to choose from again, and Uncle Bill 
says we can take the afternoon off to go find just the 
right one.” 

“We’ll be in other big towns,” Jerry said. “Maybe 
they won’t be as big as Chicago, but they’ll be big 
enough.” He was thinking that he’d have to start from 
scratch once again and save all his pay during the rest 
of their trip. 

Then Julie stepped forward. “I found this yesterday, 
Jerry,” she said and handed Jerry his wallet. “I guess 
you must have lost it.” 

Jerry took it. “Gee, Julie,” he said, “thanks!” He 
waited a minute because he thought Julie would surely 
say something about where she had found it. Then 
when he saw that she wasn’t going to, he added, “Well, 
if you think we can find just the right dress for Grand¬ 
mother here in Chicago, maybe we’d better look today.” 



Grandmother s Dress 


135 


They found a purple silk dress in one of the big Loop 
stores. Julie declared it was just what their grand¬ 
mother wanted. 

“How do you know it will fit your grandmother?” 
asked the pretty young woman who had brought out 
the dress. 

“Will it fit me?” Julie asked. “Because if it will fit 
me, it will fit my grandmother. We cut our dresses 
from the very same pattern size. Size fourteen.” 

“This is a size fourteen,” the young woman said. 

“Then we want it,” Julie told her. But after she had 
spoken, she hesitated. “How much is it?” she asked. 

The dress was fifteen dollars and, with Jerry’s ten 
dollars and Julie’s nine, that was easy to manage. It 
left them money to spare. So they decided to buy 
presents for Melissa and George. Jerry tucked the box 
with his grandmother’s dress under his arm and they 
started through the store. 

Soon Jerry saw some stairs which seemed to move by 
themselves. People were standing on them, and the 
stairs were carrying them right up to the second floor. 
He and Julie decided to try them. 

“That’s right,” a man at the foot of the moving stair¬ 
way encouraged them. “Use the escalators. Don’t wait 
for elevators.” 



136 


Away with the Circus 


Jerry and Julie jumped upon the first step. They 
were afraid that it would get away from them if they 
didn’t. The stairs moved steadily up. Soon they were 
half way between the first and second floors. They 
looked down and saw the entire first floor. 

“Do you suppose there’s anything in the world that 
you couldn’t buy here?” Julie said, looking down at the 
counters with all their different things. 

Jerry found plenty to interest him on the second 
floor. Here to one side was a great square space with 
a number of different things all run by electricity. They 
went over and asked a man who was standing there 
what they all were. The man showed them. There 
was an electric washing machine, and electric ironers, 
and even an electric dish-washing machine. 

“Why, there won’t be a thing left to do!” Julie ex¬ 
claimed. 

The man laughed and went right on showing them 
things. “Here’s an electric toaster,” he said. “You put 
your bread in right here. When it’s toasted, it jumps 
out.” 

“How much does it cost?” Jerry asked fearfully, for 
he had only a few dollars left and he had made up his 
mind to get Melissa that toaster. 

“Three dollars,” the man said. “No, it’s on sale today. 




The stairs moved steadily up 





















































Grandmother s Dress 


139 


It’s only two dollars today, and it is a fine toaster.” 

Jerry said he would take it. 

“But Jerry,” Julie said, “Melissa doesn’t have elec¬ 
tricity in her house. She won’t be able to use it.” 

“Don’t you worry about that,” Jerry said. “When I 
get home, I’m going to go to work learning all about 
electricity. I intend to help see that the people back 
there can use things like these, too. Why shouldn’t 
they?” 

They got on the moving stairway again and rode to 
the floor above. On this floor was a great space filled 
with tables and shelves of books. 

“There must be thousands!” Julie exclaimed. “Do 
you suppose there’s one that would tell George some¬ 
thing about raising vegetables? He’s always trying to 
make things in his garden grow better.” 

“But George doesn’t read much,” Jerry said. 

“Never you mind,” Julie said. “He would enjoy 
something like that.” 

There was such a book. A girl, scarcely older than 
Julie, found it at once from among all the others. 

When the book was wrapped and paid for, Jerry 
and Julie decided they might as well go. There was 
still a great deal to see in the store, but it would take 
days and days to see all, and now their money was spent. 














JULIE’S AIRPLANE RIDE 




XIV 


F ROM Chicago the circus traveled westward. 
When they crossed the Mississippi River, Jerry 
and Julie told the other circus folk stories about 
the bad flood on the Mississippi down South a 
few years before. 

“We saw people floating on housetops and holding 
to the highest branches of trees. Boats came along and 
rescued them,” said Jerry. “This all happened only a 
few miles from where we live. 

“Our house was full of people, and others slept out¬ 
side on the ground. My grandmother gave them all the 
clothes and food she could.” 

“Yes,” added Julie. “That’s the spring we got our 
dog Sassafras. He lost his folks in the flood; so he 
came to live with us.” 

One morning, when Julie was standing near the cook 
tent holding the lion cub in her arms, a surprising thing 
happened. An airplane landed on the ground and ran 
up close to her. Its wings and tail made it look like a 
great bird with wheels for feet. A friendly sort of man 


M3 




M4 


Away with the Circus 


jumped out of the airplane and came over to pat Bingo 
on the head. 

“So that’s a lion cub, eh?” he asked. “Wonder what 
he’d do if I gave him a ride in my airplane. Want to 
try it, girl?” 

Julie said that she would, so the aviator helped her 
up to a seat behind the wings of the airplane and gave 
her an odd leather hood like his own to wear. Then he 
cried, “We’re off!” 

The engine roared and the airplane raced across the 
field. Then it rose swiftly over houses and trees. Bingo 
tried to jump out, but Julie held him tight. The wind 
whizzed past her head. She was terrified, but she tried 
not to show it. She remembered what the circus folk 
always said, “If you aren’t brave, act brave, and you 
will be brave.” 

Already they were up so high that the city below 
looked like a toy village. The Mississippi twisted like a 
shining snake, and the wheat and corn fields were 
checks with little dots of trees. They went right through 
a cloud—it felt cold and wet. 

“How high are we?” shouted Julie above the roar of 
the engine. 

“Up a mile.” 

When they passed a big red-and-silver airplane, Julie 




They passed a big red-and-silver airplane 






































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Julie's Airplane Ride 


W 


saw people looking out of the round windows in its side. 

“They’ve flown from New York in only seven hours,” 
shouted the aviator. “That’s what you might call 
speed.” 

He pointed the nose of the airplane downward. Now 
all the fields and houses seemed to be coming up to 
meet them. Julie was cold with fear, but they landed 
smoothly on the ground. Julie still felt the air rushing 
past her head. Before she could get out of her seat, a 
man rushed up to her carrying a moving picture camera. 
It was a queer-looking black thing that stood on long 
legs. 

“Wait!” he cried. “I want to take a moving picture 
of you and the lion cub in the airplane. Now smile and 
talk. Tell me about the cub.” He pointed the camera 
at her. It made a whirring noise. 

Julie began, “The lion’s name is Bingo. He is three 
months old, and I feed him milk from a baby’s bottle. 
He didn’t like the airplane ride a bit, but I thought it 
was very exciting.” 

Bingo growled and scratched, but the man said, 
“That’s fine. You’ll see yourself in the movies next 
week.” 

Julie was glad to see Uncle Bill in the crowd around 
the airplane. A first airplane ride, and having one’s 



148 


Away with the Circus 


picture taken for the movies, made one feel the need 
of an uncle. 

A week later Uncle Bill took Jerry and Julie to a 
movie theater which blazed with red and blue lights 
outside. Inside it was so dark that they stumbled in 
the aisles. The lighted screen at the front of the theater 
showed a king leaving his beautiful queen to go away 
to a war. It was a very thrilling play, but Julie cried in 
the sad parts. 

After the play came pictures taken away up North in 
the land of snow and ice, away down South among the 
wild beasts of the jungles, and even under the sea. 
Then Julie appeared on the movie screen with Bingo. 
She saw herself smiling and heard herself talking, just 
as she really had! All this was possible because movie 
cameras have eyes and ears, and cleverly remember. 







HOME AGAIN 






* 





% 













XV 


N OW the circus sped down to the land of cot¬ 
ton. It was heading toward its winter home, 
for fall had come. Wagons carried cotton to 
the gins and frost was in the air. The per¬ 
simmons were red and the chinquapins were falling 
from their burrs. 

Many of the circus folk were going to their own 
cottages and farms, but all the animals would stay in 
big barns all winter and learn new tricks. The wagons 
would be freshly painted red and gold. The circus girls 
would have new feathered skirts and sparkling crowns, 
and the clowns would have funnier suits than ever. In 
the spring, the circus would come out again and travel 
its long, long road. 

“I’ll make a head elephant keeper out of you yet, 
Jerry,” said Uncle Bill. “You’ll come back with us next 
year. Won’t you?” 

“Sure, you bet,” answered Jerry. “I’m not going to 
be a circus man all my life though. I want to get a job 
in the electricity business.” 




152 


Away with the Circus 


“And how about you, Julie? Will you be a circus 
girl again next year?” 

“I’m afraid not. I love traveling with the circus, but 
I ought to stay with Grandmother. She’s so old and 
lonely. Perhaps I can go to school in town and learn 
to be a teacher.” 

Julie felt very sorry at leaving Bingo, for she knew 
he would be a full grown lion before she saw him 
again. She wept when she said good-by to Uncle Bill 
and the other circus folk. Then she and Jerry went 
away on the train. Julie wore the pretty hat she had 
bought in New York, and Jerry carried their bags and 
the box holding the purple silk dress for his grand¬ 
mother. 

“Jerry,” Julie asked, “do you remember the day we 
looked down the tracks and wondered what it was like 
in the world beyond?” 

Jerry nodded seriously. “We decided there was only 
one way to know. That was to see for ourselves.” 

“And we were afraid,” Julie said, “that we would 
never be able to go!” 

“And now we’ve gone,” Jerry said, “and seen and 
learned a great deal. We can never again feel as we 
felt that day, because we will always have so much to 
remember.” 



*/«///. 



“It’s the loveliest dress l ever saw!” 












Home Again 


155 


Far up the railroad track they saw the lights of their 
grandmother’s house. They had seen the lights of so 
many other people’s houses, and now these were the 
lights of their own home again! 

Through the window they saw their grandmother 
sitting in her rocking chair. She was drinking a cup of 
tea and rocking gently. She looked so all alone and so 
little and old that Julie felt a hard lump in her throat. 

“Let’s surprise her,” Jerry said. And he and Julie 
sprang through the door. 

Grandmother jumped out of her chair. 

She cried, “Julie!” and “Jerry!” First she hugged 
Julie. Then she hugged Jerry. Then she hugged them 
both together, and they both hugged her. “Now let me 
get a good look at you both,” she said. She stepped 
back to see them. “My! my! You look better than 
ever. Now tell me all about where you’ve been and 
what you’ve seen.” 

“Here’s your purple silk dress, Grandmother,” Jerry 
said. “We didn’t forget it.” 

Their grandmother opened the box and lifted the 
dress out of soft white paper and held it up to look at 
it. “It’s the loveliest dress I ever saw!” she said. “The 
very loveliest dress that I ever saw.” She sat down in 
her rocking chair and cried a bit. “Don’t mind your 



156 


Away with the Circus 


silly old grandmother, dear children,” she said, rocking 
faster and faster in her chair. “I’m so happy I just 
can’t hold back the tears.” 

Sassafras came in and jumped all over Jerry. It was 
good to be home again, Jerry and Julie both thought. 

Then their grandmother stopped rocking. “I’ve been 
waiting and waiting,” she said, “for you to get back. 
And the pig has been getting fatter and fatter. We’ll 
roast the pig tonight. That’s what we’ll do. Run and 
get Melissa and George! ” 

But Melissa and George were at the door knocking. 
At first they were shy, watching Julie and Jerry and 
listening to all their wonderful stories of the places 
they had seen and all they had done. Then Jerry gave 
Melissa the electric toaster and explained how it worked. 
He told her that he was going to stay home now and 
learn more about electricity, so that everyone there 
could use it just as the city folk did. 

Julie gave George the book. 

“Do you suppose it will tell me how to make toma¬ 
toes grow better?” George wondered. 

Julie looked in the book. “Why, there’s a whole chap¬ 
ter just on tomatoes!” she cried. 

Then Jerry and Julie both remembered the stones 
their grandmother had given them. They had seen 



Home Again 


157 


them both safely through all their travels. They had 
even kept them together, when Jerry had tried to run 
away from the circus, just as their grandmother had 
told them they would. They brought out their stones. 

“Here are the stones you gave us, Grandmother,” they 
said. “The good-luck stone and the joker stone.” 

But their grandmother was very old and very wise, 
and she rocked in her chair and said, “Dear children, 
you will have just as great a need of the stones here at 
home as you had when you traveled. Living right here 
can be just as full of excitement as you found it far 
from here. Some of us have to travel a great distance 
to learn that. But you have both learned it, I see. So 
keep your stones, both of you.” 



















































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